[bcamp1973]

With all this speculation about the new inexpensive headless mac, along with Apple's attempts to capture the "digital lifestyle". One question i find very intriguing is this...does Apple have any plans to develop a thin client?

I've heard rumors, but nothing ever seems to come of them. Uses for such an approach to personal computing abound and it would provide a family household, a business or a school lab with a much more cost efficient alternative to providing a complete personal computer for each individual (as well as centralize and drastically reduce maintenance). Such clients are available in the Windows world and i have friends that are actively deploying them in enterprise solutions with great success. This could be a boon for Apple in the enterprise market. OS X seems the perfect candidate for such an endeavor as well. Are their any rumors of such a device within Apple? Any rumors of a third party attempting to build such a device? Better yet, is it even possible for a third party to do so or would this require significant retooling of OS X in it's current state?

The applications in enterprise and education are obvious, however applications in the home are very intriguing to me as well. I can see a family with each member having access to a terminal in their own rooms, the kitchen having a terminal with access to the family recipe database, a small touch terminal in the entry way that allows control of the security system and lights, thermostat etc. Not to mention a wireless touch terminal in the living room to control the TV (TiVo or Apple equivalent), Stereo (iTunes) etc. In my ideal (and admittedly geeky) future I see homes coming with their own server controlling virtually everything. You simply pick your OS and decide where you want your terminals and you're done. With multi-core processors and increasing bandwidth (especially WiFi), and the recent explosion in digital storage capacities (and resulting drop in prices) this all seems highly feasible? Has anyone heard of any rumors on this?

[Oneota]

Originally posted by bcamp1973:
Has anyone heard of any rumors on this?

No, but holy crap! You registered in '99 and are just now getting around to posting something?!?


Seriously, though - what you described would be pretty cool, but I've not heard rumors of anything like that coming from Apple.

[Colin Davis]

I seriously doubt it.. The iMac was originally conceived (before Job's tenure) as a Thin Client device.. They had wanted to make it as cheap as possible, and have it connect through a server, hence the "i" in iMac.

Jobs is/was fairly good friends with Larry Ellison, who championed the Network Computer, but he felt that the iMac wouldn't work as a NC. The cost of conventional computers was dropping so rapidly, it didn't make any sense to get an internet-only device. You wouldn't save nearly enough money to make it worth it.

And since then, the price of PCs has only come down. It didn't make sense at the time, and it doesn't make sense now.

So good though, but unlikely as heck.

[bcamp1973]

Originally posted by Oneota:
No, but holy crap! You registered in '99 and are just now getting around to posting something?!?

Ya, right after i registered a friend called asking me to help him troubleshoot his Win 95 machine. I just got off the phone

Seriously, though - what you described would be pretty cool, but I've not heard rumors of anything like that coming from Apple.

I've only run across a few rumors online. Nothing very serious and nothing in the "official" rumor sites. It just seems to me that it's an excellent way for apple to regain its hold on education and drive into the enterprise market. Maybe I'm naive, but it also seems this sort of solution could be developed without spending massive $$ on R&D...but maybe it's wishful thinking on my part?

[brapper]

new king of lurkers!

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by brapper:
new king of lurkers!

Indeed...

[euphras]

I would have lost/forgotten my password after ***HELL*** FIVE YEARS!

[bcamp1973]

Originally posted by Colin Davis:
I seriously doubt it... ...The cost of conventional computers was dropping so rapidly, it didn't make any sense to get an internet-only device. You wouldn't save nearly enough money to make it worth it.

And since then, the price of PCs has only come down. It didn't make sense at the time, and it doesn't make sense now.

So good though, but unlikely as heck.

Really? That's not the impression I've gotten from my (admittedly limited) research. A friend of mine in London is an independent consultant. He makes disgusting amounts of money converting companies over to thin client solutions. He said although you can get adequate PC's as low as $500 these days the thin clients he deploys vary in price from $150 to $400 (and higher) and the centralized administration and maintenance drastically reduces yearly overhead. In an environment where many users are utilizing similar applications (buiness/education) thin clients have proven a great investment. In environments with few users utilizing different applications it's not necessarily always a better solution...

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by bcamp1973:
Really? That's not the impression I've gotten from my (admittedly limited) research. A friend of mine in London is an independent consultant. He makes disgusting amounts of money converting companies over to thin client solutions. He said although you can get adequate PC's as low as $500 these days the thin clients he deploys vary in price from $150 to $400 (and higher) and the centralized administration and maintenance drastically reduces yearly overhead. In an environment where many users are utilizing similar applications (buiness/education) thin clients have proven a great investment. In environments with few users utilizing different applications it's not necessarily always a better solution...

Apple already has the $599 eMac quasi-thin client. And if large institutions buy more then a few hundred, that price will drop.

I just don't see the market for Apple thin clients.

[olePigeon]

OS X Server already handles thin clients through NetBoot & OpenDirectory, or through shell accounts if you just want a terminal or X Windowing system. Although current Macs are an expensive thin client. But if Apple releases the $500 headless iMac, it'd make sense.

I can see the price dropping to $450 for Businesses by taking out the HD and making it strictly a terminal.

[Oneota]

It all depends on how it's implemented. You could do it today by using NetBoot and stripping the HDs out of your machines. Overly expensive, but it's technically already a reality.

But for that to be feasible, you've got to have fantastic network bandwidth, and a lot of servers to aggregate the NetBoot load over. It takes a lot of work, but it can be done. All Apple would need to do would be to make it more cost-effective (true thin-clients) and put a little more of the Apple Ease-of-Use flair into it.

Tiger Server (Better, easier NetBoot) + Tiger Client (Few more bugs worked out on the client end) + Headless iMac = Roughly what you're thinking, no?

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Originally posted by bcamp1973:
Ya, right after i registered a friend called asking me to help him troubleshoot his Win 95 machine. I just got off the phone

How many reboots was that?

As for thin clients, it's just another trend from big iron manufacturers, to be honest I thought that whole push had died down a few years ago. Guess it depends on who's using the end machines.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by brapper:
new king of lurkers!

The Lounge becomes creepier every day...

-t

[bcamp1973]

Originally posted by Oneota:
...Tiger Server (Better, easier NetBoot) + Tiger Client (Few more bugs worked out on the client end) + Headless iMac = Roughly what you're thinking, no?

Generally speaking that's what i'm referring to. The thin clients my friend deals with are evidently little more than a graphics card to push the display and a keyboard & mouse. Everything else is pretty much handled server side. I questioned him about real world performance of such a setup. In my my it seems it would be sluggish, much like a VNC. However he said it's all quite snappy and very scalable. The current eMac implementation is overkill on hardware/software based on what I've found. Simply put, the thin client is basically a window into a session on the server, little else. With the eMac you have a complex motherboard, extraneous chip sets, RAM etc. That wouldn't be needed in a true thin client. I know a couple people have said already that there isn't a market for this, but I question that logic. It seems to me the applications abound...

[Eug Wanker]

Apple sells institutional machines which have the optical drive removed, and even the hard drive removed. The optical drive-less machines are sold all the time, and I've read of a Japanese institutional iMac purchase where none of the iMacs had hard drives. They were net booted.

If this headless iPodMac rumour is true (at say $599 retail), then it's possible Apple could have a $399 institutional price for pseudo-thin clients if purchased in large numbers. This would be better (higher cost) hardware than a true thin client, but would allow the possibility of full OS X goodness and eye candy. That's not really necessary, but is definitely a bonus.

Indeed, I've already suggested elsewhere that this iPodMac is NOT just a consumer Mac, but an attempt by Apple to try to get into enterprise. Mind you, a 40 GB hard drive doesn't cost a huge amount, and at a $449 (or even a $499) institutional price for a hard drive endowed Mac, it would be go a long way for Apple to get into enterprise. Although I'm no IT guy, my guess is that a lot of enterprise is more comfortable with having a hard drive on board. $50 more per computer removes the need for net boots.

BTW, I will point you to this HP thin client pricing page. You'll see the el crappo hardware specs listed there, but prices range from $350 to $510.